Filipino-owned businesses remain optimistic amid the pandemic
March is usually a good time for small businesses in the Washington area. From catering events to doing family photoshoots, local companies rely on the spring months for income.
But when the novel coronavirus pandemic began to take its toll on Filipino-owned businesses in the United States, so did forced closures and declining foot traffic.
And after going through the slow months of January and February, The Game Sports Pub, a sports bar in Washington, lost out on some of its most profitable action: March Madness.
Jo-Jo Valenzuela, the bar’s general manager and managing partner, says they shut down the bar and attached upstairs restaurant, Tiki on 18th, for five weeks at the start of the pandemic.
“[After we reopened,] we survived as a destination place, but there were not a lot of walk-ins,” Valenzuela, 44, says, “and being a sports bar downstairs people only come here when there are sports, like March Madness — we were banking on that.”
Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia’s first stay-at-home orders during the pandemic were all issued on March 30, but the effects of cautious life hit business owners before that.
“The pandemic hit mid-March. Two weeks before that, we felt it. The trajectory usually March is gonna be good. Like good good,” says Daniel “Jumbo” Montes, the restaurant manager and chef at Matthew’s Grill in Gaithersburg, Md. He says the restaurant had a lot of catering jobs lined up — a big money-maker for the restaurant. “When … the pandemic [hit], one by one, we were knocking them off… people were canceling.”
At the same time, small businesses have seen their regular customers come back to support them during this difficult time — and get some support of their own.
“Something I’ve noticed is that because times are so stressful … a lot of people have just been going toward comfort foods,” says Kuya Ja’s general manager Dominique Estrera. “To me it makes a lot of sense, like during a stressful time, I just want something that will make me feel good at home.”
Sacrifices and swerves
Since early March, businesses have had to change operations and decide how to proceed in a way that, at the very least, keeps them afloat financially. Many took time to make these decisions by shutting down temporarily.
They’ve cut their losses by reducing business hours and laying off staff. Going off course from their regular practices, such as increasing takeout orders and adding outdoor dining, has been crucial to their success.
For Craig Cabrera-Manalo, 39, who runs a small business called Tailored2Taste, the pandemic slowed down catering jobs and put a halt to in-person cooking classes. He and his husband Edison own the parent company, Cabrera-Manalo, LLC, which also encompasses Edison’s photography business, Poemtography.
Some of Craig’s customers have asked him to start teaching virtual cooking classes, which he plans to do via Zoom. Tailored2Taste also offers some retail items for sale online, such as face masks and aprons.
Craig’s catering jobs from the summer through December were all canceled, save for one.
“Because of the pandemic, our business has basically hit a halt … So now I’m teaching culinary arts virtually for community college,” he says. “We’re just trying to think of ways to be innovative.”
Without catering jobs to rely on, Tailored2Taste has done a few pop-ups in the Cabrera-Manalos’ Glen Burnie neighborhood.
Kuya Ja’s in Rockville, Md., has also tried to be innovative by creating Filipino food kits that customers can buy and cook at home, says Javier Fernandez, who co-owns the restaurant with his wife Jen.
“We might do like bulalo, sinigang where I basically make the broth and they can finish it up at home,” he says.
Typically, Edison and Craig Cabrera-Manalo run their respective businesses as two-man operations, working as each other’s assistants — with Edison helping Craig serve at catering events, or Craig carrying Edison’s photography equipment on a shoot. So they didn’t have to lay off staff when the pandemic knocked out most of their jobs, unlike many other businesses.
The small business owners and managers spoken to for this story emphasized how their close-knit staffs become like family. This made losing them even harder.
“Probably the hardest part was losing some of our full-time staff,” says Toni-Rose Bioc, the operations manager at Manila Mart in Beltsville, Md. “It was difficult for a small business, there was only so much that we can do to provide for them.”
Manila Mart lost two full-time staff and four part-timers, Bioc says, due to the long duration of the market/café’s renovation and pandemic-related closure. But some of her prior part-timers decided to become full-time workers or helped recruit new staff. “We actually have double the amount of staff now,” she says.
At Matthew’s Grill, Montes says, as many as 20 people have been on staff at one time. In mid-September, they were down to eight. Kuya Ja’s was running at half capacity for staff at that time, says Estrera, 28. They were only open for half the amount of hours at the time, and couldn’t afford to keep the full staff.
He says it was “terrifying” to hear that restaurants were closing down when the pandemic took hold in March.
For a while, Valenzuela says, he was working as the sole chef at The Game Sports Pub, with he and one of his managing partners delivering the food to customers for carryout only. This allowed the restaurant to remain financially viable, though it was hard on him.
“You’re not paying too much labor. I was killing myself, yeah, sure, but I wasn’t paying much,” Valenzuela says. “So it kind of worked as long as our customer base just worked with us.”
As The Game and Tiki on 18th reopened for outdoor and eventually indoor dining, Valenzuela was able to rehire bartenders, food runners and servers.
The buffet at Matthew’s Grill was another causality of the pandemic. “No, we don’t do buffet anymore because it’s very scary,” says Montes, 27, whose uncle Reymond Domingo owns the restaurant. “We think [the virus] would just spread like wildfire if we do the buffet.”
Now, he and his staff are focusing more on carryout. “We did carryout but not as much as this,” he adds.
At Kuya Ja’s, says Estrera, orders were about 60 percent carryout and 40 percent dine-in pre-pandemic. So the restaurant was able to adjust well to the increasing carryout orders brought on by the shutdown of in-person dining. But losing in-person dining felt like losing part of the restaurant’s identity, Estrera says.
“We used to be able to talk to customers in general, with their first bite of lechon, their first bite of Filipino food, see their reaction, what do they think of it,” he says. “A lot of us, we really missed that aspect.”
And for Valenzuela, the change in May that capped third-party delivery app charges at 15 percent for Washington, D.C. restaurants was a blessing. Previously, restaurants could pay up to 30 percent in commissions. But the District of Columbia was alone in the region in this measure; Maryland and Virginia have not taken such legislative measures — though Montgomery County, Md., issued a warning to consumers in October about the high percentages delivery apps charge their favorite eateries.
Every business’ situation is unique. For Poemtography, shoots have continued, particularly with Edison Cabrera-Manalo’s returning customers. “It’s not that the pandemic didn’t affect it, they just trust that there are measures that photographers also will follow,” he says.
But the catering jobs are far and few between for eateries. Craig Cabrera-Manalo did one catering job — the only one that stuck out of 15 planned — that looked very different from previous ones.
“We made food and packaged the food individually. So packaging the food individually there was less likelihood of COVID transmission … no one touched the food other than us and we had gloves on and everything else,” he says. “So it wasn’t the usual buffet type that we’re used to or that folks are used to.”
Proceeding with caution
Business owners and managers have also had to maneuver around coronavirus-related restrictions and protections.
Edison Cabrera-Manalo has continued to book several family photoshoots, making sure the locations are outdoors and that he uses a telephoto lens, which lets him stand about 10 feet away from subjects.
“One thing I’m really trying to promote is I always wear my mask,” he adds. “It’s a protocol that I do that because I want them to feel safe and I want them to know I value their safety.”
Safety and health are a priority for these business owners. And amid the difficult choices they’ve had to make, some places, like Kuya Ja’s, have tried to make this time easier for their work families.
“After a couple weeks we kept communicating with employees, I knew they had to get some money somehow,” says Fernandez on the time during the restaurant’s closure. “Every two weeks we bought them some groceries just using our money.”
Fernandez, 37, says he’s also made sure none of his employees are taking public transportation, to protect their health. Instead, he offers to pick them up, or send them rides via ride-sharing apps.
Masks, gloves and social distancing are all basic recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that these businesses follow. They’re required to lower the maximum capacity within the buildings, though restrictions vary by state and local jurisdiction.
Many have also added hand sanitizing stations in their brick-and-mortar locations, QR scan codes instead of physical menus, are doing contact tracing by taking down guests’ contact information, and have installed glass barriers between cashier and customer. Staff members get their temperature taken before heading into work, and some places are taking customers’ temperatures as well.
Valenzuela says his staff asks customers to put masks back on when getting up from their tables to use the bathroom or go outside. But he wants patrons to know it’s better that restaurant staff handle situations in which others don’t do so.
At The Game, there have been a couple incidents with guests who are “almost like picking fights [with others] because they’re not wearing the mask properly or what not,” Valenzuela says. “It would have been better if it’s just us dealing with that … let us handle that. Being in a restaurant is different, there’s alcohol involved.”
Bioc says they’re locking the doors at Manila Mart when the indoor space is at their desired maximum capacity; though half capacity for them is 40, they lock the doors around 25 people.
“We want to keep the customers safe,” she says. “We want to keep our employees safe as well.”
Putting dreams on hold
Then there are the dreams that the coronavirus pandemic has delayed or put on hold for the foreseeable future.
Manila Mart’s renovation was a project that took two years of planning, says Bioc, whose parents, Emma and Antonio Bioc, own the market/café. They closed for renovation after Thanksgiving-New Year’s rush this season. The coronavirus pandemic delayed the renovation for two extra months; they were planned to be closed for three months, but ended up being closed for five, says Bioc.
“It was difficult because sometimes inspectors weren’t working during COVID or they were working remotely so there wasn’t a phone number you could call,” Bioc says.
Some of the changes include adding a more formal restaurant area with a menu option, rather than solely a turo-turo (or, “point-point”) style café. And there’s a new bar, though due to coronavirus-related restrictions, it’s currently off limits. Plus, there are fewer tables than would normally be set out.
“It sucks because customers are seeing it for the first time and it’s not the real setup, but I think the customers are still happy with the renovation,” Bioc says.
After reopening, the market/café has done well in terms of traffic, even with an extended time away from patrons. And Bioc says she thinks one way the pandemic has helped drive up business is in the store’s grocery area, because people are starting to cook more at home.
“We never worried that there’s not enough business. I did worry that when we closed for five months, customers would find an alternative and it would really affect us,” Bioc, 27, says, “but a lot of our old customers are really coming back and supporting us.”
But for the Cabrera-Manalos, dreams of expansion will have to wait. Both Craig and Edison have other jobs; Craig works in federal government and Edison is an English as a Second Language public school teacher.
Before the pandemic, Craig says he was planning to leave his federal government job to expand Tailored2Taste into a to-go restaurant for his food — which is Asian Pacific Island fusion, taking inspiration from his Filipino and Chamorro heritages. He had 15 catering events lined up that were going to be a “nice nest egg” for the restaurant.
“It’s really strange cause it really was our plan, I was getting ready to … focus on our restaurant,” he says.
Still, he knows that he will achieve this dream eventually. “I’m not worried,” he says. “It’s just making our dream a little bit further to reach but we will reach it eventually.”
As for Edison, the winter may make things more complicated for him, because he currently is only doing outdoor photoshoots. He wanted to boost his winter income by opening an indoor photography studio, but that dream will have to wait, too.
“Because of the pandemic that’s one thing I have to scrap, I probably won’t do a lot of indoor shoots,” he says. “[We were thinking of] changing the garage or the basement room into a photography studio, so that’s one thing that we are going to postpone for the meantime.”
At the same time, some people have found the opportunity to start new businesses during this hectic time.
Looking forward
These local business owners are remaining optimistic about their ability to survive the pandemic, even if it means just breaking even.
“God has been good. As long as we get everybody paid, we pay the suppliers, right now we expect that we’re not gonna make as much as we used to,” Montes says. “But as long as we’re getting by, just stick and hold to whatever God gives you, we’re gonna be OK … That’s the only way we can look at it. As long as we’re not losing money, we’re OK.”
In addition to lower profits, business owners are worried about what the winter months will bring. Many states are seeing rising cases and reimposing restrictions to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“Am I worried about it? Yes, I’m very worried, especially now that it’s getting colder,” Valenzuela says about The Game’s success. “The reason the numbers actually went up is because we suddenly have tables outside that we never did before, and when we made it attractive it obviously attracted more people. With it being cold, you can do so much, you can put heaters out, but it’s a difficult thing. Because some people are still not gonna go sit inside.”
Fernandez says he’s grateful for his staff’s hard work, though the prospect of rising COVID-19 cases in the winter is disquieting. “Just the fact that we’re still open, we’re still grinding in there and doing whatever we can to make business in there … I’m definitely happy for my staff, all the sacrifices they’ve made to help the restaurant … and stay open.”
Estrera adds, “With winter coming up, I think a lot of restaurants are feeling the pressure around the corner.”
Yet the cautious confidence of business owners in times of hardship endures. Craig Cabrera-Manalo says he’s built a loyal following that spreads the word about Tailored2Taste, so he isn’t worried about business post-pandemic.
“[A]s long as we all stay healthy and stay safe, once all this is safe, my clientele is going to come back,” he adds.
“I’m not penny pinching right now but I’m just trying to stay positive for my team,” says Bioc of Manila Mart. “I’m not too worried, I’m here to stay and I think [my staff] know that the dedication is there. There’s a lot of adversity that we’ve had to overcome, but we’re ready for it, is what I’m trying to say.”
Jacqueline B. Hyman is the founder/editor of Fil-Am Features. Reach out via email at filamfeatures@gmail.com or on Twitter @filamfeatures.
